Radiochemistry books

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Richard Hull
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Radiochemistry books

Post by Richard Hull »

Two new books that I have had the chance to acquire and checkout. One a lab manual that seems to have had wide distribution. and the other a formal book.

The lab manual is a thick GBC bound volume used at Penn State in the 1970s entitled. "Radio Chemistry Laboratory Experiments",. by Warren Miller, 1974

It deals specifically with Penn State's course on Radio Chemistry and gives a lot of valuable health physics and counting statistics data. It has a humourous overtone as well as the prof is writing to a bunch of dunderheaded undergrads forced to play with radioactives inside a working reactor building inorder to get a passing grade. (Not the best combination of personel mated with a dangerous facility and materials.)

I quote a humourous paragraph.

"If the alarm sounds, leave the reactor building promptly. It is a klaxon horn and the sound is unmistakable. Don't wait to see what others do; don't ask around to see if it is a false alarm --- IT IS ALWAYS A FALSE ALARM --- just leave the building and follow the crowd down to the gate where the reactor operation people will authorize a return. In nearly twenty years of reactor operation at Penn State there has never been a "REAL ALARM", but the regulations under which the University possesses and operates a reactor requires that all alarms be deferred to."

Much more info and humor inside this great lab manual.

*****************************

The formal book is entitled "Radio Chemistry Theory and Experiment" by T.A.H. Peacocke, 1978, Wykeham Publications. This is a superb paper back on the subject. Ever make a "THORIUM COW"? Would you want to? This is a good text for those wishing to delve into this aspect of the nuclear issue. It will inform you on a number of isotopic issues as well as extraction procedures. It covers the usual health safety issues and radiation monitoring techniques in detail.

You can't really converse intelligently about Rad safety issues, health hazards and the like without at least a quick rinse in Radio Chemistry. So many knee jerk types have no grounding in this area. Often the biggest mouths and loudest voices are from this ignorant side of the issue.

Note added 01/02/08..... This paperback book by Peacocke is now commonly selling for over $60.00 OUCH!

Richard Hull
Progress may have been a good thing once, but it just went on too long. - Yogi Berra
Fusion is the energy of the future....and it always will be
The more complex the idea put forward by the poor amateur, the more likely it will never see embodiment
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